Joining al-Qaida? Please think again

[emad]

Gerard Seenan
Monday February 7, 2005
The Guardian

As internet counselling services go, its scope is, at the very least, ambitious. The latest in online help services is designed to address the most extreme of social problems: the danger of straying into international terrorism.

The service, set up by the authorities in Saudi Arabia, sets out to persuade anyone thinking of joining Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network to think again. There is also a hotline for families worried that their sons are dabbling with murderous extremism.

Despite the formidable challenge, the Saudi authorities say the website has had a great deal of success.

Saleh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, Islamic affairs minister, said more than 250 people of the 800 who had contacted the site had decided to forsake terrorism. "The rest are still continuing contact," he said at an international counterterrorism conference in Saudi Arabia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1407359,00.html